to think people should at least get a basic grounding in genetics before they cast aspersions on my fidelity/ relationship history?

[IntergalacticHussy]

I'm sick of acquaintances and sometimes complete strangers coming up to me and demanding to know why my kids look different to one another.

Yesterday was a prime example; bumped into an acquaintance i've known for a few years who took a look at my dcs and just blurted out 'so why do they have such different colour hair?' in this really quite aggressive way.

A list of possible answers flashed through my mind

1. Because. obviously they're not identical twins; there's years between them!
2. I don't bloody know, ask a geneticist!
3. start mumbling about dh's sperm, my eggs and recessive genes in a pseudo-scientific manner

Just to underline what he meant, he then started mumbling on about his own kids (who look totally different!) and how people must think he only fathered one of them. Bit weird really, maybe this he's projecting his own insecurities onto my kids.

This is just one example of the conversations i end up having with people i barely know, day after day. As it happens they have the same dad, but if they didn't, it wouldn't concern you anyway, I feel like saying. If we were friends, that would be the kind of thing you'd already know about my family and the fact that you have to piss about asking daft questions just underlines the fact that we don't know each other well enough to be talking about such personal things - in the bloody supermarket of all places!

Smile politely, nod and then pat their arm with a reassuring 'it's hard isn't it sometimes, understanding basic biology?' Give them a quick squeeze and a sympathetic look and move on. It's passive aggressive but it's the only language they understand.

Nah, I hope that some people just have foot in mouth syndrome and mean no harm. I do find it odd sometimes when I look at dh and his siblings. They're all wildly different. And I have commented, lots of people do. Plus DH's parents, DH, BIL1 and SIL all have the same bloody type, BIL2 has a different blood type entirely. Basic genetics but fascinating the differences that crop up.

Yep, genetics is definitely weird! Dh and I had expected a dark-haired, brown-eyed baby. DS is blond with green eyes.

Gotabookaboutit: It's probably due to heterozygous advantage - organisms with two different alleles for each gene tend to be fitter than those who have two copies of the same allele. It's basically the opposite of the aristocracy inbreeding and becoming chinless with massive noses and ears. How attractive we find someone is based on how symmetrical their features are and also how average their features are. Someone who has two different alleles for each of the genes involved in development will generally be more symmetrical (low symmetry is normally due to having not so great developmental genes so if you have two different copies you are more likely to have at least one good one). They will also normally have more average features (average meaning median rather than normal here) e.g. if you get genes which would give you a small chin from your father and ones which would give you a big chin from your mother then you'll probably end up with an average sized chin. If you look at the faces of women who are known for their beauty e.g. Halle Berry, Catherine Zeta Jones etc. you will notice that all of their features are pretty average - they don't have big noses, small chins etc.

My DS is brown eyes brown hair (light brown). His eyes were actually brown from birth which caused a few stares (cos white people's babies are meant to be blue, innit). My DD is blonde, blue eyed. She is NOT the milkman's, though that has been joked about. DH and eye both have very dark brown eyes and brown hair. I usually figure we must both have a recessive blue which makes the listeners eyes glaze over and go all dreamy.. DH's mum has hazel/greenish eyes, and my dad has blue eyes. The blond hair is in their somewhere... the freaky thing is that while pg I dreamt she would have this colouring.

On a stupid note... Both parents MUST have the recessive gene to produce a blue eyed child don't they? Or can it get more complicated?

Still mie LOOK alike despite having very different colouring.

Reminds me of this story

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-377839/Black-white-twins.html

Twins of two mixed race parents, with different coloured skin.

My DD is adopted but does have my personality and strangely looks a lot like my DH, she has the same colouring and mimics his facial expressions and mannerisms. On talking to another mum at a toddler group it came up that DD is adopted this mum looks at me looks at DD and without a hint of irony asks if I am sure.

Afraid I was unable to thinking up a cutting reply I was too busy snorting coffee out of my nose at laughing at the silly bint.

Even with my rather erratic memory I probably would have remembered at least parts of giving birth and the first 2 years of a child's life and surely I don't look quite unhinged enough to invent 13 months of absolute hell courtesy of a rotten social work team.

QueenStromba-thanks - they are all very regular featured and although their skin tones varies -most of them have a beautiful skin which would be like a healthy tan in a pale skinned person.

I'm glad it's not just me! DS1 is a carbon copy of his dad with brown eyes and brown hair. DD has red hair and hazel eyes (both our dads had red hair). I have brown hair and green eyes.

However, DS2 who is two weeks old has strawberry blonde hair and looks as though he will have brown eyes (they are a very dark blue).

I am beginning to wonder if they all had different dads and I've just forgotten. . .

Was once going with a friend to pick up her wedding dress. Friend is 6 foot tall, with very beautiful straight, long red hair. And slender figure. I am 5ft 6" with curly very dark brown hair, ginormous bazookas and hips. Woman in shop asks 'are you sisters?'.

When I'd finished guffawing my friend said actually in Ireland with larger families you do get all the different variations of parental genes so it was a reasonable assumption that the bridesmaid was a sister, even if we didn't look alike. (And that we both looked Irish in different ways.)

Friend's husband is of Indian extraction, she is a blonde Aussie. Of their four kids, three look Asian, one is facially very like her dad but blonde and fair skinned. Why? Who knows and who cares?!

Next time, just look them full in the face and say, "Are you aware of how rude you are being? Can you please tell me why you think that it's acceptable to be so rude, particularly when you barely know me?"

DH and I were walking DD1 (then 3) and DD2 (then 1) in a double buggy into town and a secondary school child pointed and exclaimed "ooh look twins!"
I get asked a LOT if DD3 and DD are twins (there's 19 months between them).
The most recent was two months ago when someone asked if I had two sets of twins (DD's ages were 12, 9, almost 6 and 4!).
I sometimes get comments on how much they look like DH, other times me, so goodness knows!
I get asked about the age gap in relation to 'do they have the same father' (nearly 4 years between DD2 and DD3 as we were at uni).
I get asked a lot about how unusual it is to have 4 girls, are we disappointed?, did we want a boy? etc.
People are also suspicious as 3 of the girls have blue eyes despite their father having brown eyes. Even DD3's brown eyes were dark blue until she was 18 months!
I get asked if they are all mine, and if I am old enough to have them/all. One woman refused to give me my change in a shop until I told her how old I was (I was just turned 24 and had just had DD4 the month previously).

People are either brazen or don't know they are rude.

tallulah that's so funny.

I can't believe how rude some people can be.

Gotabook I don't know the answer to your question, but it is so true. I knew a Chinese/African family and their children are absolutely stunning.

boobelina - my friend's DP gets that a lot - he's not genetically related to his DD but they're a similar shade. People seem to see skin/eye colour as evidence of genetics rather than facial characteristics I think.

Some of these examples are shocking rudeness!

I would point out though, it's not always meant rudely. Sometimes curiosity just comes across that way iyswim.

My DSD has a very fair-skinned friend who's just had a baby with her black boyfriend. She said she was really surprised when she saw the baby because he's not dark skinned even though his dad is black. That could have easily seemed rude but I know DSD (13) is quite naive and just says what she thinks. I just explained that baby's skin colour can change in the first few weeks (that's true right? Or have I told her something totally wrong...)

When ds was a couple of weeks old we bumped into a woman who we kind if knew as an aquaintance but not very well. We'd been married nearly 8 years before we had him and she knew this. She looked at DH then at DS and said 'oooh, there's no doubting his paternity!' I wanted to say 'there'd be no doubting his paternity even if he didn't look like DH you barm pot!' but just laughed and carried on chatting!

I know a beautiful woman from Thailand - lovely brown skin, dark hair and eyes who had a child with a white man. Their child has blond hair, pale skin and blue eyes. Some of the looks people give them make me sure they are doubting she is really the child's mum.

Some people are ignorant!

Some people are just totally ignorant

My friend and her sister look nothing alike, my friend is dark haired and dark eyed and her sister it blond and blue eyed. It is only when you put them with their brother that you realise they all related!! And they all have the same dad!

Genetics are a funny thing. I can't quite work out why DS and DSS are both very fair haired, yet DH, DSS's mum and me all have very very dark hair! Figured it must be a throw back to DH's mum who is blond!

It's because there are so many single mums now with so many children with so many different fathers.

Also it's because rudeness and the expectation of overshare seems so much more acceptable. All part of the touchy feely moment. Everything's out in the open.

It's not supposed to be embarrassing or shameful if you have children by three or four different men so maybe they can't imagine you'd be unwilling to talk about it if it were the case.

My sister and I were always asked were we twins? I could never understand it as we look nothing alike. She is now a tall, blonde glamour girl and I am.... well not :)
My kids have both come out with blonde hair - DH and I are very dark. DS1 has green/hazel eyes - were blonde until 12mths and DS2's are still very blue at 7mths (secretly hoping they stay blue, they are so beautiful!) When people see the DC's they regularly comment on how different they are from us (infact they look just like my brother!). I just smile and say aren't genetics amazing! Smile and nod. Tends to stop that line of conversation.

See, my two dds DO have different dads but are very close in age. One has long dark curly hair, one has short, straight and fine blonde hair.

Complete strangers ask 'Where does she get her curls from?! Why is their hair so different?' I don't really want to go into how dd1's dad walked out when I told him I was pregnant and how I met dh when she was a baby etc.

I usually end up mumbling something about my mother having curly hair, but it is so embarrassing.

Why embarrassing? If it's still embarrassing to have children by different fathers, why do so many women do it?

Gooseberry - because more, and more men have no shame in walking out on a pregnant partner rather than knuckling down and getting on with child rearing, perhaps?

Perhaps women would like more children with a new, more mature, husband(?)

The genetic roll of the dice is Fascinating.

Goosberry- it is embarrassing because it wasn't the path I planned to take in life, and people (usually married women, I have found ) can be very quick to judge.

I have heard some horrid judgements made by fellow teachers about families with children from different fathers, enought to make your toes curl. Sometimes I defend my family set up, other times I don't have the energy.